In the prior U.S. Pat. No. 2,620,074, issued Dec. 2, 1952, to Junius T. Moore, Jr., and having a common assignee to this application, namely, The Moore Company, Inc., of Charleston, W. Va., there is disclosed a receptacle for use in changerooms wherein the receptacle is capable of being moved between a lowered position of accessibility and an elevated position of inaccessibility. The receptacle disclosed in the aforementioned patent included a basket member for receiving articles such as shoes, helmets, or the like, and a movable bail-like handle member having inturned U-shaped clothes supporting hooks which abutted against the bottom of the basket member to support the same when the basket member was in its lowered position with respect to the handle member. Clothes or the like could be suspended on the hooks when the basket member was raised relative to the handle member and the clothes would be held between the bottom of the basket member and the free ends of the hooks when the basket was lowered relative to the handle member as the receptacle was raised by a link chain.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,962,253, issued Nov. 29, 1960, to Junius T. Moore, Jr., and also assigned to the common assignee, an improvement was made to the system with regard to providing spring means to absorb shock caused by sudden stopping of the receptacle when lowering, and locking means for locking the receptacle in the elevated position. Subsequently to this and because municipal, state and federal governments have increased safety standards in all phases of operation in equipment used in manufacturing plants, industrial plants, mines and the like, a further improvement to the system was made to provide safety should the elevating means, namely, the link chain be inadvertently dropped by the operator when raising or lowering the receptacle, or should the chain break. This improvement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,211, issued Nov. 8, 1977, to Junius Thomas Moore, and also assigned to the common assignee. In more detail, U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,211 provided a safety pulley for use in the system, the safety pulley arresting rapid descent of the receptacle due to sudden relaxing of tension in the link chain or breaking of the link chain.
In the systems as disclosed in the aforementioned patents, the receptacle utilized the concept of providing the hooks on the bail-like handle members having free ends which abutted and/or supported the basket member in its lower position with respect to the handle member. However, it has been found that such an arrangement has proved unsatisfactory due to rough and improper handling by personnel, thus resulting in the hooks for the clothes bending when there was an abrupt stopping of the receptacle. This caused the parallel arms of the U-shaped handle member binding in the eye guide bolts and in some instances actually caused the guide bolts to be damaged. The bending of the clothes hooks on the handle member sacrificed their clothes-holding ability, and in some instances resulted in the basket member not hanging level when in use.